This article provides calendar year data for 2000, 2001, 2002 and 2003 for Australia's international trade in services by state.

Tables F1 and F2 show, for credits (exports) and debits (imports) respectively, Australia's international trade in services for 2003, classified by state, for 11 broad service types, with more detailed components also shown. Tables F3 to F8 show this information for calendar years 2002, 2001 and 2000.

Interpretation of data

Services credits are classified by the state of provision, while services debits are classified by the state of consumption. Confidentiality constraints severely restrict the detail that can be provided for some states and territories. Care should be exercised in interpreting the data.

While the state allocation methods for transportation, travel and communication services are considered reasonable, especially for the analysis of movements in the series, the allocation for other services (about 25% of all trade in services) is primarily based on the location of the business reporting the information, which serves as a proxy for the state of provision / consumption of that service.

Transportation services are allocated by state using a combination of indicators including merchandise trade statistics by state and short-term overseas passenger arrivals and departures by state of clearance.

Overseas passenger departures data by the state where most time was spent are used to allocate the business and personal travel components of travel credits. Education-related travel credits are split using state data provided by the Department of Education, Science and Training. Travel debits are split using overseas departures data for resident departures by state.

For communication services, an indicator for allocating the consumption of telecommunications and postal services by state in the national accounts is used to approximate the state allocation for the international trade in these services. It is assumed that each state's share of outgoing international calls and terminating connections for incoming international calls will be reasonably well aligned with total service consumption by state or territory.

Further information

Further information and requests for longer time series for both calendar and financial year data by state can be obtained by contacting Kevin Yeadon on Canberra 02 6252 6255 or fax 02 6252 8003, or email at k.yeadon@abs.gov.au.